In 2019, once again the question that most, if not all sales organizations are faced with is "how much time are our sales professionals actually selling?" What activities can be automated that enable sales professionals the additional time to be engaging in actual selling time with prospects and clients?
Are your financial advisors and relationship managers bogged down by too much paperwork and/or manual tasks that they actually are not spending their valuable time providing guidance and expertise to their clients?
Do they have access to the most compliant documentation and have an easy way to access them from a single source when they are in the field with clients?
How can organizations provide the tools that today's financial advisor can leverage to help do what they do best - spend time with clients and engage is a productive conversation?
Tool/System Integration
This seems obvious, but many organizations simply implement and layer on technology that, while on the surface may appear to reduce administrative time, actually adds to the burden of the advisor. Layering on technology requires the seller to adapt and learn the new software while also having to deal with the errors and bugs associated with the integration. This ultimately leads to loss of " face time" with prospects and clients.
Consider the elephant in the room-the CRM. The CRM is an accepted tool in the world of financial services that provides effective task tracking and visibility to sales leadership. However, for the financial service reps, the CRM itself is not the only tool they use on a day-to-day basis and is not always available when they need it.
Most financial advisors are bouncing from CRM to e-mail to an intranet or content management system. Often times for these financial advisors, the experience on their mobile device can be far different from their desktop causing additional frustration and lost productivity.
The "layering" of tools is not the answer, but the complete and seamless integration of the tech stack is essential for a financial advisors' and organizational ROI. Giving the advisor one "single pane of glass" to capture activities, create and distribute content for clients and prospects and collaborate with colleagues drives adoption of the tech stack and provides real ROI, making advisors happier!
Solving Real Business Problems
The crux of the productivity paradox can be answered by answering one key question: What business problem(s) are we addressing? Here are key business challenges that an integrated tech stack, including a robust sales enablement solution address:
- On-boarding/Coaching and Learning: Develop sales professionals skills and empower teams
- Productivity Tools: Enable work on mobile devices with a beautiful interface that is intuitive to use
- Automation: Transform manual processes with workflow, forms and overall automation of tasks
- Engage with Clients and Prospects: Present any type of content natively and in an interactive manner
- Collaboration: Create, edit, annotate and share content with peers
- Deliver Insights: Understand what is happening in the field and make adjustments accordingly
As we progress through 2019 and you evaluate tools/technology to help your sales professionals become more productive it is important to take a step back and evaluate the business problems that are causing the lack of productivity in the first place.
